Disclaimer: Dragonball Z is owned by Akira Toriyama, Bird Studios, and TOEI.

Author's Notes: This takes place just after Mirai Trunks leaves the past (so, before he kills Seventeen and Eighteen). This was intended to be a oneshot, but was then turned into a series, but is now, once again, intended to be a oneshot.

Warning: I went and blew all chance of slapping a child-friendly rating on this thing by using the "f" word. So, PG-13?

Began: March 30, 2003
Finished: April 6, 2003

Wavelength
by Silver Galaxy

The random, colorful streaks of light penetrated his eyelids. Trunks groaned, gave up, and opened his eyes. He had made many trips in this time machine, yet he still expected sleep to come easy. Perhaps it was just hopeful thinking?

Blasting through the space-time continuum was, by far, the worst part of the entire trip. Well, now that he thought about it, perhaps it seemed "bad" because the time machine had barely enough space for him. When he slept, he liked to sprawl out. All he could do in his "egg," as he called it, was sit, close his eyes, and wait for his back to start aching.

Fighting Cell, being hit by his father, having his mother fuss over him, and even the torturous Room of Spirit and Time didn't come close to being as bad as his egg. Well, that's what he thought now. If he had to do it all over again, he doubted he would still be thinking on that wavelength.

Perhaps his egg was a blessing in disguise? Its skill for keeping him awake prevented him from having his customary nightmares. Then again, when he was awake, all he thought about was all that he had left behind in the world he had saved.

It felt weird to even think that. Technically, he did save the past. Goku may have sacrificed his life to save Earth, and Gohan may have given everything he had to defeat Cell, but without his visit to their timeline, how far would they have gotten?

He refused to answer that no-brainer question.

What was morbid, however, was how he felt...what, "included," now? Before, he had always felt guilty for being alive. He knew Gohan felt the same way, however he had a reason to. Gohan had actually fought in the battle that had reduced the Z-Fighter's numbers down to only two. Trunks had been an infant. Still, and especially after Gohan died, he couldn't shake the feeling that he belonged dead, too. It wasn't fair that he was alive and they weren't.

Then Cell killed him. He had died doing what he was surely born to do. Just like the future fighters he should have fought with in his own timeline, he had been killed. It hadn't even been the scariest or worst moment of his life. But, now, he was...what, part of them? He didn't feel as guilty for being alive, although he regretted that he had the luxury of having the dragonballs at his disposal.

It sounded as if he had been happy to be dead. A part of him...maybe? No. The only time he would be content with death was after the threats to his world were eliminated. He just didn't know what else there would be to live for. His mother?

Yes, of course. As much as it pained him, he knew that he was all that Bulma had left. How could he die on her? He couldn't - wouldn't.

Trunks wondered if he would tell her about his death. Her number one worry about his traveling to the past was his safety. How could he word it? "Yeah, Mom, I'm fine. Cell just blew a hole through my chest and almost destroyed the world a few times, but everything's pretty sweet now."

He blinked at the thought. Trunks hadn't put two and two together before, but he had blown a hole through King Cold's chest. Was it a coincidence that he shared the same method of execution as Freeza's father, or was it some cosmic sense of retribution?

The deaths of Freeza and King Cold had given him a few nightmares, not that he would ever admit it. He remembered Goku telling him that he didn't have the ki of killer. Goku had said that only three hours after he had slaughtered two beings.

Killing was killing. 'Oh, but they were evil!' wasn't an excuse. Trunks had murdered them without mercy. And that's what it had been: murder. True, they would have killed everyone, if given half the chance. So, in a sense, it was self-defense. However, the noble part of him knew that it wasn't really self-defense, if the killer was a thousand times stronger than his victims.

The perfect explanation gnawed away at his mind, only he couldn't give words to it. The point was, King Cold, at least, had undeniably begged for mercy. It was hard for Trunks to swallow that he had...done what he did, even as much as it had needed to be done.

But, in the end...

He had saved the world. And, if he was strong enough, he was going to save his own world. Although, honestly, and perhaps a bit humorously, he really didn't want to become like Mr. Satan. The Champion of the World? No, that was a title he would pass up in a heartbeat.

He had sat on the sidelines and watched his world be destroyed for years. He wasn't anyone's champion.

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He hated being awake, and he hated sleeping. It sounded impossible, and, a lot of times, it was. It wasn't very healthy, either. But what did it matter, anymore? Nightmares about his living hell of a world or thinking about the life he could never have, what was the difference?

'Thinking?' 'Thinking!' Who the hell was he kidding? He was brooding!

He was jealous. Pissed. Maybe even disappointed.

His Goku was permanently dead. And the Goku he had fought with? Well, he was dead, too, although he had the option of having his life restored.

He would never agree with Goku's decision. It wasn't his right - nor his will - to condemn a friend for choosing to squander away chances that he should have never had, but he just couldn't help it. All he had to say was that Goku was making a mistake. He was hurting his friends, family, and his unborn child. Was Goku even aware that his wife was pregnant?

Damn it! He had risked everything and allowed the people of his time to be killed, just so he could help out Goku's world. He hadn't saved Goku just so he could fight the Androids. He had given Goku the antidote, so his family could have him there.

He knew what it was like to be without a father. He saw what his mother was like without Vegeta. He saw the pain Gohan and ChiChi were always in. He knew the pain firsthand. Having the chance to spare so many people that pain was a chance he didn't have the heart to pass up. But, somehow, Goku did? Goku had the heart to let his family - and a child that would never know him - live with that pain? How... That was impossible. It was fucking impossible for Goku to be that cold-hearted.

Trunks just couldn't think of a way to explain Goku's choice. All he knew was that he felt like what he had done was for nothing. No, that wasn't right; one man's bad choice didn't overshadow millions of saved lives. That said, he guessed that he just felt like his actions were unappreciated.

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Goku's child. A child that was destined to be a year younger than his past self. It was a thought that almost hurt him to "brood" over. What were the chances that his past self and Goku's youngest child wouldn't become friends? What, a million to one?

God, it did hurt - actually hurt - to think about it.

After Gohan died, he would have done anything to have another Saiyajin around to help fight the fight. He would have done anything to have another friend. He was a loner whom hated to be alone - another impossibility that he made possible.

Trunks wasn't sure if he was happy for his past self or jealous of him. What he did know, though, was that he would do anything to know what it would be like to have a half-Saiyajin his age as a best friend.

Gohan had almost been that. He had been a demi-Saiyajin and his best friend, although many years older. If Gohan had lived longer, their age gap would have disappeared. He would have matured. But he'd never know for sure, would he? Gohan was dead, and age no longer mattered.

It had been way beyond odd to suddenly be a near decade older than Gohan. At first, it had been difficult to think of Gohan as anything but a lifelong friend, mentor, and hero. Then, slowly but surely, he had learned to perceive Gohan's younger self as an entirely different person. Still, that didn't keep him from wondering if young Gohan ever looked up to him the way Trunks had looked up to "his" Gohan.

He wasn't someone to look up to. He was crazy and hounded by nightmares and regrets. He saw things the way no one else did. For example, Gohan attaining Super Saiyajin Two was saddening for him. His Gohan had trained and killed himself for years trying to attain a level that high. His Gohan ended up murdered and face-down in a filthy puddle.

It's not fair!

Trunks didn't bother wiping away his silent tears...

Furthermore, his life sucked, and seeing what he could never have only worsened that feeling. Thinking about it and being envious of what he had given to them only made him a worse person. He couldn't imagine anyone looking up to him; he didn't think it safe or logical.

...Nor did he try to talk himself out of his anger spell. He was mad pissed, and he hated himself for it.

Trunks had grown up with constant fury being an everlasting part of him, sure, but he knew he wasn't the type of person to become spiteful because life had gone right for other people. When he was in the past, he was happy for the way everything turned out. He couldn't stand to be mad at the Z-Fighters to their faces. Trunks didn't understand why his attitude suddenly changed when he was...

Oh. That was probably the reason why.

He was going back to his Hell. He had to continue fighting. They didn't. Of course he was copping a bad attitude. Stress, after all, never had done his mentality well.

Trunks sighed, leaned back, closed his eyes, and waited for his back to begin aching.

The End

(c) Silver Galaxy, 2003